Quicken 2014 : the official guide

577 Pages·2014·15.531 MB·English

by  Sandberg, Bobbi

Quicken 2014
®
THE OFFICIAL GUIDE
Bobbi SANDBERG
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ISBN: 978-0-07-182605-1
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This book is dedicated to seven of the most wonderful people on the
planet. In chronological order: Sam, Royce, Joseph, Helene, Carissa, Gabe,
and Colette. Each of you is a gift, and I am always amazed at your caring
selves, intelligent understanding, and your talents and skills.
None of you will ever know how much you are appreciated and admired.
Also, for the always helpful attitude, friendly information, and willing
assistance, a special thanks to Anne Bobinac and the team at Whidbey
Island Bank! We are fortunate to have you folks in our world.
And, of course, to my kids, the parents of the seven most wonderful people
on the planet, and, as ever and always, to Sandy.

Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Part One
Learning Quicken Basics
1 Getting to Know Quicken by Working with Accounts,
Categories, and Tags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
What Is Quicken?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Exploring Quicken’s Uses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Getting Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Installing Quicken from a CD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Starting Quicken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Quicken Interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Exploring the Quicken Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Understanding Other Quicken Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Finding Help in Quicken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Understanding Online Financial Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Reviewing Account Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Creating Your First Account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Setting Up Other Banking Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Using One Step Update and the Password Vault. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Setting Up One Step Update. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Understanding the Password Vault. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Working with the Account List Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Establishing Categories and Subcategories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Working with the Category List Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Using Tags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2 Getting Up and Running with Quicken Mobile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Understand Mobile Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Appreciating the “Cloud”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Meet Quicken’s Mobile App. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
v
vi Contents
About Your New Mobile Companion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Beginning with Quicken’s Mobile App. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Understanding Your Quicken Cloud ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Getting Started from Your Desktop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Setting Alerts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Showing Your Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Using Your Mobile Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Getting Started on Your Mobile Device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Working with the Quicken Mobile Overview Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Part Two
Banking
3 Recording Bank and Credit Card Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Getting Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Reviewing Account and Transaction Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Working with Bank Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Quicken’s Registers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Using Account Registers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Understanding Splits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Tracking Credit Cards with Quicken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Writing Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Printing Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Printing Quicken Checks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Transferring Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Working with Existing Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Searching for Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Quicken’s Other Account Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Adding Notes, Flags, and Alerts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Attaching Checks, Receipts, or Other Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4 Using Online Banking Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Online Account Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Understanding Transaction Download. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Introducing Online Payment and Quicken Bill Pay. . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Setting Up Online Account Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Checking Online Account Service Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
The Online Center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Using the Online Center Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Downloading Transactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Making Online Payments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Bills and Income Reminders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Contents vii
Being Reminded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Creating Reminders from Downloaded Transactions. . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Working with the Bills Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Managing Reminders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Using QuickFill and Memorized Payees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Using the Financial Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Useful Quicken Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Minding Your Bills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Using the Paycheck Setup Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Creating the Address Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
About Alerts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Viewing Available Alerts Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5 Reconciling Your Accounts and Examining Your Banking Activity. 183
Reconciling Bank Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Starting a Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Comparing Transactions to a Paper Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Identifying Reconciled Items. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Finishing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Other Reconciliation Tasks and Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Reconciling Credit Card Accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Printing a Reconciliation Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Undoing Reconciled Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
A Closer Look at the Spending Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Exploring the Spending Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Using the Spending Register . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Quicken Reports Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Reviewing Report and Graph Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Creating Reports and Graphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Working with Reports and Graphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Working with a Report Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Customizing Reports and Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Working with Subreports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Saving Reports and Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Exporting Your Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Printing Reports and Graphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Part Three
Managing Your Investment Accounts
6 Entering Your Investment Transactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Quicken Investment Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Understanding Your Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
viii Contents
Managing Your Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Creating Investing Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Working with Placeholder Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Working with Investment Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Understanding the Investment Transaction List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Using the Investment Transaction Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Entering Common Transactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Entering Transactions in the Transaction List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Editing Transactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Adjusting Balances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Working with Securities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Viewing the Security List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
7 Using Transaction Download and Research Tools . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Transaction Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Reviewing Your Investing Accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Setting Up Transaction Downloads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Using the Online Center Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Exploring the Account Overview Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Downloading Quotes and Investment Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Setting Up the Download . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Creating a Watch List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Viewing Downloaded Quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Using Investing.Quicken.com for Updates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Exporting Your Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Utilizing Quote Lookup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Using Online Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
8 Evaluating Your Position. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Using the Investing Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Understanding the Portfolio View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Studying Your Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Exploring Asset Allocation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Updating Your Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Working with Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Utilizing Investing Tab Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Using Investment Analysis Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Using Asset Allocation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Analyzing Your Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Previewing Your Buy/Sell Decisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Estimating Capital Gains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Setting Investment Alerts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Contents ix
Part Four
Understanding Your Financial Position
9 Monitoring Assets and Loans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
The Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Understanding Assets and Debts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Reviewing Loans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Creating Property and Debt Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Creating Asset and Debt Accounts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Loan Accounts in Quicken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Creating a Loan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Viewing Loan Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Making Loan Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Modifying Loan Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Other Asset Transactions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Adding and Disposing of Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Updating Asset Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
10 Keeping Tabs on Your Net Worth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
The Property & Debt Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Exploring the Net Worth View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Using the Property View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Opening the Debt View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Accessing Property and Debt Account Registers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Creating Alerts for Property and Debt Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Working with Property and Debt Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Part Five
Designing Your Financial Future
11 Planning Your Future with Financial Calculators . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Planning for Retirement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Planning Your Steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Getting Started with the Quicken Lifetime Planner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Setting Plan Assumptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Viewing Plan Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
The “What If” Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Setting “What If” Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Using “What If” Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Finding More Planning Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
A Look at Quicken’s Financial Calculators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Learning About Financial Calculators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Accessing the Financial Calculators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400